


La Folia: Variations

by Schgain



Series: The Deft Bowman [3]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: :(, Canonical Character Death, Voidfish POV, child death congruent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-13 22:50:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10523550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: Death is not the end. Death is an ocean on all sides of our lives. Deep and dark and cold, and anything but empty.---La Foliafrom a different perspective.





	

**Author's Note:**

> As always, kudos and comments are always appreciated. Thank you for reading!

_And Johan... Is struck down._

The Voidfish screams. 

A discordant note, unlike anything anyone has heard before. It echoes through the planes, through the matter of being that is magic and memory. For a split second, there is only that which the Voidfish is, and that it is... is their song. 

Somewhere, distant, Magnus asks them a question. "Can you live without the water?" It barely registers. Everyone inoculated can hear their song, their screeching cry of grief as their gelatin body presses up against the glass. Just as distant, just as frantic, the Voidfish answers back. A flash of light, a single note song, a telepathic feeling for the affirmative. Anything, anything for Magnus to get them to their Bard. 

They are a mother. They should be expected to protect their children. If they can't protect this one, nor the one from before... What kind of mother are they? 

The glass shatters. The rush of broken glass and galactic ichor is beyond loud. If the Voidfish could hear in the traditional sense it would be nearly overpowering. The water sweeps the room, and with it, they can move to Johan, to where the shadow creatures stand paused, countless white, white eyes staring up at the medusa. 

The Voidfish... is angry. They scream again, rattling the walls of the entire rotunda. Magnus covers his nonexistent ears to no avail in the periphery of their senses. Some of the shadows disperse under their Song. Others brandish sharp edges and stern glares. But the Voidfish does not, will not allow another of their child come to harm. 

The water is rushing over Johan. 

He is not getting up. 

He is not kicking to the surface, but sinking down to the rotunda's marble tile. The water around him has always been dark with the Voidfish's mere presence and saline requirements, but now it is clouded with red. And still he doesn't struggle. The Voidfish screams again, directly at him, and he opens his eyes, finally. 

He opens both of them. His beret has floated away in the water, leaving his hair to billow around him. And in the dark of the water, the pinprick stars of the eye that the Voidfish themself had tainted. They sing seven familiar notes, reaching out their lappets and oral arms. If their bard can just grab them, they can pull him to safety--

He opens his mouth. There is no song.

His last breath full of air bubbles out and floats to the turmoiling surface of the water, and he drowns. Just out of reach of his--

Well, the Voidfish can hardly call themself anything regarding guardianship, now could they? 

This is the second one they've lost. They're unworthy of calling themself a parent. They've lost two, they've lost _two_ \--

They Sing again, every song all at once that Johan had ever taught them. The shadow things surround his body, just enough that the Voidfish can't reach. One note rends them, turns them to stardust. Their lappets feel through the dark water and, upon seeing pastel fabric billowing, pull Johan to the surface.

His head lolls. His eyes are open, glassy, and water leaks out of his mouth and nose with abandon. The Voidfish can only hum desperate little melodies. This will be the first and only time they can cradle him, can touch him. To them, every being is small, but Johan especially, in their careful hold, as if he will break should they move him.

(He's already broken.) 

The Director in her cruel mercy will come, they know, and pull Johan from their hold, and take him away, just like what she did with the last one. She will have to scold the Voidfish, because they will be reluctant, and eventually someone will have to go into the top of the tank and pull Johan out of their tentacle. They know why it had to be done, but it hurts all the same. And it will hurt again, and the Voidfish wonders if it will ever stop hurting. 

The Director will want the memories of Johan to be given to them, to consume and to redact. But Johan doesn't want that, and the Voidfish thinks that they should have listened to him more. 

(and it's too late to start.) 

\---

The preparations for the Rites of Remembrance are hard on Lucretia every time. Even the most impersonal rituals for traitors make her carry her form like she's made of glass, with shaking breath and shaking hands. The Voidfish, at least, is not alone in mourning.

They watch her, her robes shimmering with glitter and rhinestones. She's wearing pink with her blue, an obvious tribute to the deceased. There are little flowers embroidered on her robes, like the bell of the Voidfish's non-sentient cousins. 

She holds out to them Johan's file. It is one of the most extensive files on record, including all his as of yet uneaten symphonies. 

The Voidfish wraps one careful lappet around the memory. It is almost instinctual to see paper and ink and consider a meal. But the wound in their heart (though they haven't one in the traditional sense) is too fresh, and Johan knew he would not want to be forgotten. 

Lucretia looks up at them with expectant eyes. The Voidfish looks to the crowd around her as well. 

Magnus looks up at them too, in what they can only imagine is his attempt to make eye contact. He gives them an almost imperceptible nod of his head. 

The Voidfish lifts up their lappet and presses the folder, now slightly damp, back into Lucretia's hands. To many, memory is all one can have. The Voidfish cannot rest with taking that from someone, when they cling so desperately to their own. 

Thankfully, the Director seems to understand. Her hands shake over the folder, feels the creamy paper between her fingertips.

"He was like a son to me too," she says, quietly so only the Voidfish can hear. They hum a soft note, familiar only to Lucretia, and she manages a smile. Instead of saying anything else, she brings up the band with a wave of her arm. A tiny, sleepless, puffy-eyed Angus steps to the front of the room brandishing a violin nearly as big as he is. He takes a shuddering breath, puts his instrument under his chin, and begins to play one of Johan's signature pieces.

The song is utmost familiar to everyone, but especially to the Voidfish. Not only because it had been played many times only to them, but because it is playing from somewhere else, far away, clouded by planar boundaries. 

[La Folia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGET78mPMCA) plays one final time by the Deft Bowman, and one final time, the Voidfish listens to his song.


End file.
